


all i've ever wanted (for us to get along)

by prettydizzeed



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, As One Does, M/M, Pining, love confessions via hobo johnson songs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 02:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21580108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettydizzeed/pseuds/prettydizzeed
Summary: Fear the man that doesn’t understand that there’s a million fish in the sea, his speaker blares, desperate, emphatic, and Newt fumbles to unlock his phone, change the playlist, but as usual his timing’s all off,but fear the girl who he really thinks is a different species: she’ll rip your heart out.His brain autocorrects the pronouns. Whatever.
Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Comments: 14
Kudos: 61





	all i've ever wanted (for us to get along)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spacemancharisma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacemancharisma/gifts).



> this happened because hobo johnson's "mover awayer" made me and Bones really emotional today. there were a lot of sadder directions brought up by that song re: pacific rim, but i'm tired and they deserve a soft ending

The time has just changed, a week or so ago, which, why the fuck does that even happen during the middle of the end of the world. Who decided that like, yeah, shit sucks, but you know what we should do to make it all just a little bit worse? Reduce the already limited waking hours of sunlight! 

Anyway, it’s dark in Newt’s room even though it’s six fucking pm, so the lamp is on, and he’s doing a great job of multitasking staring at the invitation to the Hong Kong Shatterdome (paper, glossy, like the promotional material he used to get from colleges back in high school, and who even sends physical brochures anymore, he hasn’t gotten snail mail since—never mind, moving on, or not, obviously, but _whatever_ , man) and blinking back (entirely unrelated) tears. 

Okay, almost entirely unrelated. Because there is, as it happens, a list of his potential coworkers in the K-Science department, and somewhere in the middle, yet still the first fucking name his eyes landed on, like something gravitational, like something pathetic:

Hermann Gottlieb.

 _Fear the man that doesn’t understand that there’s a million fish in the sea_ , his speaker blares, desperate, emphatic, and Newt fumbles to unlock his phone, change the playlist, but as usual his timing’s all off, _but fear the girl who he really thinks is a different species: she’ll rip your heart out._

His brain autocorrects the pronouns. Whatever. 

He presses skip; it may be dark as shit outside, but it’s not late enough at night to listen through the chorus. That’s reserved for hours after 3am, thanks, times when he’s glad the box of all his pre-2017 shit is far under his bed, against the wall, because it’d take too much energy to drag all the stuff in front of it out first, which is not at all worth the wallowing. Usually. 

“Pre-2017” is the nice way of putting it. Even amid an actual apocalypse that might give folks an actual reason to defy the long-established dating system (but not the FUCKING Uniform Time Act of nineteen sixty-fucking-six, _apparently_ ), Newt’s life is still divided into Before Hermann and After Hermann, with a fragile four-year gap down the middle, bleeding like a lost tooth.

He’s sure that, had Hermann known this pamphlet would end up in the formaldehyde-scented hands of one Newton Geiszler, Ph.D, Ph.D, Ph.D, Ph.D, Ph.D, Ph.D, he would have never signed his name to some previous draft of this paperwork.

Well. Mostly sure.

Eighty-four percent or so.

He signs the paper at 7:39. At 3:01, he’s rummaging under his bed, ache in his knees and dust up his nose and lyrics he doesn’t particularly want to hear on full blast.

*

The world is ending, and Newt is humming. 

In his defense, the world has been ending for a while, like, years and years, man, which is exactly what he says to Hermann when he inevitably complains. 

“At least play the song, then, so your infernal racket will have the benefit of being in tune,” Hermann says, which makes Newt want to grin, because it means he’s in a good mood, but instantly makes Newt wince, because it means he won’t let it go until he’s heard the song. 

It’s 6:02pm, and it’s dark outside.

Newt presses play.

_You make my Mondays feel like Fridays._

It feels monumental. Hermann’s eyebrow doesn’t even raise.

_You make my Ruby Tuesday’s taste like Benihana’s._

It feels like something he would’ve put in a letter, in the old days (still, what he means is still, who is he even kidding anymore, it’s a miracle or maybe a direct result of bone-deep exhaustion that he doesn’t already have some shit like that written in his best cursive and tucked under his pillow), which is what he thought the first time he heard it, two years After Hermann and still During Heartbreak. 

_And all I’ve really wanted_

He busies himself in the back corner of his lab. Starts washing one of those dishes Hermann is always fussing at him about.

 _Was for us to get along._

Newt glances at Hermann’s side of the lab; damage assessment, he tells himself, and spends a handful of nanoseconds arguing with himself about whether Hermann would even read enough into it for there to be damage to assess, but it doesn’t matter, because Hermann is gone. 

_(Give! Me! A! Break!)_

* 

They’ve just been released from medical—well, Newt has; Hermann was cleared days ago, but the two-drift thing apparently makes Newt things like “a repeat offender in the field of reckless endangerment” and “at risk of brain damage” and “a bloody idiot,” and whatever the doctors said after they finally told Hermann to shut up on threat of revoking his visitor privileges. 

They’re sitting in the otherwise empty mess hall, across from one another, just… looking. Eyes locked—red/white/red/white, a mirror image and a smokescreen over everything they haven’t yet talked about. 

“I have that song stuck in my head,” Hermann says, instead of, well, anything else, any of the things Newt was hoping he’d say. “Don’t even know any of the words. You’d think the Drift could’ve managed that, at a minimum.”

Newt flicks through the mental catalogue of all the songs important enough to him to have appeared in the Drift, each several degrees more potentially embarrassing than the last, until finally he shrugs. “What song, dude?”

Hermann coughs, huffs, rolls his eyes, and at last hums a few bars. Newt swallows.

“Oh, yeah that. It’s, uh—” He doesn’t want to be looking at Hermann’s face while he says this, but it’d be worse to look away. Red/white/red/white, a pinwheel, a reflection with a thumbprint smudge. He clears his throat.

“You make my Mondays feel like Fridays,” he sings roughly, voice scratching on his raw throat. “You make this shitty caf food taste like Benihana’s.”

The corner of Hermann’s mouth lifts, and Newt isn’t sure if it’s context clues or the remnants of the Drift that enlightened him that those weren’t exactly the accurate lyrics. 

Newt looks down. Fidgets with his thumbs. “And all I’ve ever wanted—” but he’s saying it, not singing anymore, and it’s open and desperate and quiet and Hermann puts a hand on top of Newt’s.

Everything stills. Newt turns his hand, palm up, and Hermann interlocks their fingers. When Newt dares to steal a glance at him, he’s smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> follow my hyperfixations in real time on tumblr @campgender


End file.
